Where Have You Been? by Wendy James

recently arrived Italian migrants. Ed’s mother had heard rumours of a smallpox outbreak amongst the Italian community (unfounded of course, but still). Ed can’t imagine that he’d ever manage such a situation in quite the same way, but is glad that his suburb is affluent enough now to make this a non-issue – the only immigrants who settle here are doctors from Hong Kong and Singapore, or the odd American IT wunderkind.
    When they finally find the platypus exhibit (by way of the South American monkeys – Mitchell maintaining that he’s been looking at the map upside down), they discover it’s closed for cleaning. Ed is disappointed – he likes to watch the strange submarine pups snuffling about in their gloomy aquarium – but the children are delighted, race off down the path that leads to the elephants.
    â€˜We don’t need a map anyway, Dad,’ Mitchell crushes the photocopied page into a ball, ‘there are signs everywhere.’ He tosses it at the nearest bin in passing. It misses, but he doesn’t look back. Ed sighs, picks up the paper, follows the signs.
    No, Ed’s childhood was remarkable only for its lack of serious trauma (and perhaps, he thinks, it was this very absence of problems, of hang-ups, that initially made him attractive to Susan, and continues to cement his relationship with his wife). His parents were not wealthy, but they were certainly comfortable – his father started his working life as a high school science teacher, but, a keen and capable weekend carpenter, he eventually (after a small seeding loan from his own father) called it quits and established his initially tiny kitchen business. His mother, a primary school teacher, stayed at home after her children were born, going back to part-time work only when they’d reached high school. He has his brother, Derek, who is three years older – to whom he is very much attached, despite their profound differences – and a sister, Pam – six years his senior, unmarried, unhappy – who he tolerates. His family had moved house only once during his childhood – and that was to a bigger house in the same beachside suburb. The Middletons had holidayed two weeks every year at the same caravan park on the Central Coast; spent another two weeks on his (adoring) grandparents’ Bathurst property. Ed had been doctored for years by the same physician who’d delivered him; he attended the local primary and then high school and still has friends he’s knownsince kindergarten. Ed knows how lucky he was, how lucky he is; knows that his upbringing was exemplary in its solidity and stability – a picture-postcard suburban childhood.
    â€˜Oh God. What is that? ’
    â€˜Oh, that’s gross. I think I’m gunna spew.’
    â€˜Don’t say “God”, Mitchell, and spew is not a nice word, Stella. Vomit. Say vomit.’ Ed follows the children’s disgusted gaze. One of the elephants has a monstrous vine-like tangle of vessels dangling from its rear. They are so heavy, so low, that they almost drag on the ground.
    â€˜It looks like intestines,’ Mitchell says. ‘God, Dad, do you think its intestines have come out?’
    He searches for an explanation. ‘I think they’re blood vessels, kids. They’re called, um, haemorrhoids. And I think the elephant might be pregnant. Watch its stomach.’ The animal’s huge belly ripples, contracts. ‘See.’
    â€˜Oh, g-ross. ’ Mitchell simulates severe retching.
    â€˜Imagine having a baby elephant in your tummy,’ Stella giggles. Then: ‘Ugh. I think I’m gunna spew, again.’
    The stability and consistency of his early years has, or so Ed believes, made him the strong (but not hard), confident (but not insensitive), motivated (but not hyper-dynamic) individual that he is, and so he tries hard to reproduce (though it is such a different, such a difficult